Louis Armstrong
One of the most famous jazz performers of all time is Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong. He was one of the Trumpet Kings and played the New Orleans swing style of jazz. This song "What a Wonderful World" is his most famous hit, though he has many others including "Hello Dolly," "West End Blues," "Stardust," and "Ain't Misbehavin'." During a mishap with his sheet music while recording "Heebie Jeebies," Satchmo improvised lyrics and produced the first widely recognized recording of scat singing, a technique for which he is still a respected master.
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John Coltrane
Coltrane is probably the best recognized saxophonist in the world. He was a master of his craft and remains widely respected today. He made many loving melodies and bebopping grooves. He was a leading light in the Free Jazz movement as well as bebop and hard bop. The African Orthodox Church recognizes him as a Saint. His music has influenced innumerable musicians long after his death in 1967. His hit song "Giant Steps" is still a masterpiece of intense complexity in its harmonic structures. His sound has been described as "sheets of sound."
Miles Davis
Miles Davis was an amazingly creative artist who pioneered many new forms of jazz including cool jazz, bebop, hard bop, free jazz, modal jazz, and jazz fusion. His album "Kind of Blue" is the best-selling jazz album of all time. "Sketches of Spain," "Bitch's Brew," and "Miles Ahead" are three more very popular albums that rocked the jazz world. He played with other greats such as Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Coleman Hawkins, and John Coltrane. All the while, he fought against his addiction to heroin. He also had a knack for painting, on which he spent a lot of time in his later years.
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Billy Holiday
Billy Holiday had a very rough childhood with little-to-no support from her parents. In spite of this, she became an inspired musical genius. Her vocal skill wowed many, and she was invited to perform with many jazz legends: Fletcher Henderson, Benny Goodman, Chick Webb, and Duke Ellington. She is often compared with Louis Armstrong, one of her musical idols and inspirations. Her protest song "Strange Fruit," written by a Jewish teacher and decrying the lynching of blacks in the South, has become a classic.
Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves Blood at the root Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees Pastoral scene of the gallant South The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth The scent of magnolia sweet and fresh Then the sudden smell of burning flesh Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck for the rain to gather for the wind to suck for the sun to rot for the tree to drop Here is a strange and bitter crop |
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Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery was a beast of a guitar player. He played guitar without using a pick. He only used his thumb. Why? Because he wanted to be able to practice and not keep his wife awake at night. So he thought that playing with his thumb would make him quieter. What it did do was give him a unique sound that set him apart from other jazz guitarists.
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Benny Goodman - "Sing Sing Sing"
Benny Goodman was the 9th of 12 children of a very poor Polish Jewish immigrant to the United States. His father enrolled him in music lessons at a local synagogue. His father worked very hard in the stockyards. Every day he came home exhausted and smelly. When Benny and some of his brothers started becoming very successful, he urged his father to retire. But his father felt that a man should always be working for his family and refused. He started working at a food cart stand so that he could work outside where his son was playing and hear him play. But one night he was hit by a car and died the next day. Benny never lost the sad feeling that his father never got to see his sons become successful in life. He never knew how his hard work payed off.
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith led a rough life. Her parents and one of her siblings were all dead by the time she was 9 years old. Bessie and her brother performed music in the streets for money. By 1913, she was a rising star on singing stage. She performed around the country, living a wild lifestyle. She became known as "The Empress of the Blues" for her high-quality blues singing. She and Louis Armstrong would inspire future jazz singing greats Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday.
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald is known as "the First Lady of Song." Her voice is powerful and precise. She had a vocal range of three octaves (!) and was renowned for her scat singing. Her recording career spans 59 years, and she won 13 Grammy Awards. She was given the National Medal of Arts by President Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush (the not-evil one).
Her mother and father were divorced, and her mother died when she was 15 years old. Ella performed a variety of odd jobs to make a living, and eventually started singing at the legendary Apollo theater in Harlem. Her career exploded, and she started performing with many of the greatest stars of the time. She died in 1996 of diabetes.
Her mother and father were divorced, and her mother died when she was 15 years old. Ella performed a variety of odd jobs to make a living, and eventually started singing at the legendary Apollo theater in Harlem. Her career exploded, and she started performing with many of the greatest stars of the time. She died in 1996 of diabetes.
The Glenn Miller Orchestra - "In the Mood"
Glenn Miller was born on a farm in Iowa, but was destined for something more than farm work. He took a strong interest in the "dance band" music he had heard about, and decided to become a professional musician. Through the 20's and 30's, he played with various bands with great performers including Benny Goodman and Dizzie Gillespie. When he broke out on his own, he gained a great deal of success. However, critics found him too commercial and rehearsed to be real jazz. When World War II came to the US, however, life changed. Glenn was too old to be drafted into the military, but he asked the Army Brigadier General to be brought in to serve as director of the US Army Air Force Band. He wanted to serve and raise the morale of the troops in the US and in Europe. In 1944, he was on an airplane over the English Channel between England and France when the weather turned ugly. The plane never landed, and no trace of it has ever been found. Glenn was declared MIA, "missing in action."
Charlie "Yard Bird" Parker
Charlie Parker is one of the iconic saxophonists of jazz. He was an important entepreneur of the bebop genre, and he helped create the image of a jazz musician as an artist and intellectual as opposed to an entertainer. Charlie was an avid listener of classical string music and developed the music style called Third Stream, which combined jazz and classical music. After a car accident in his youth, he became addicted to morphine and eventually heroin, which would contribute to his early death at age 34. He had done so many drugs and drank so much alcohol in his time that the coroner who performed the autopsy mistakingly thought his body was 50 or 60 years old. Dizzie Gillespie paid for his funeral arrangements.
Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie is widely considered one of the greatest trumpet players of all time. His image is an icon in itself. He always wore a beret, horn-rimmed glasses, and a great smile. His trumpet was bent awkwardly, and his cheeks puffed out as he played. However, he was one of the pioneers of bebop and a highly complex and influential musician. He jokingly ran for President in the 1960's, sending the proceeds from his election "campaign" to Martin Luther King Jr. He died in 1993 of pancreatic cancer.
Lester Young
Young was a very skilled saxophonist and clarinet player in tough times. He grew up with his family's band in the American South, and struggled with touring in lands with Jim Crowe laws. He began a lasting partnership with the famed Count Basie and grew as a musician. Lasting emotional trauma from World War II left him in the blues. He drank heavily, to the detriment of his musical skills. He always played with high emotion.
Count Basie
Count Basie was an early jazz pianist with impeccable flare and style. He held together a jazz orchestra for nearly 50 years, and many great names of jazz gained experience and fame under his direction. Basie respected class and fashion, but he pulled himself up with great effort and a natural talent for the piano. He stayed creative and adapted his jazz to the changing of the times, incorporating blues, bebop, flute, and other elements "as long as it makes sense."
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins was one of the first popular players of saxophone in jazz. Before him, the saxophone was not often recognized as a jazz instrument. He was a major player of the swing sound in the 1940's, but he did also contribute to the bebop style as it started to develop. His rendition of "Body and Soul" secured his legacy as a jazz innovator. He played with many of the greats--Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Benny Goodman, Django Reinhardt, Duke Ellington, and more.
Stan Getz
Stan Getz started in big band jazz music, but evolved much further. He followed in the footsteps of his idol, Lester Young. He also played bebop, third stream, and cool jazz, but he is best known for playing bossa nova music. Late in his career he started playing jazz fusion with great Chick Corea.
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was one of the first saxophone innovators of bebop, and his career lasted over 50 years. He was very tall--6 feet 6 inches (198cm)! So he was sometimes called Long Tall Dexter. He played with Nat Cole, Louis Armstrong, and Fletcher Henderson, among many others.
Django Reinhardt
Django is a Belgian jazz guitarist who developed the "hot jazz" guitar style. Unlike much of jazz at the time, his sound had heavy European cultural influences, especially from Spain and Belgian gypsies. At 18, a fire destroyed the caravan he lived in with his wife. In the escape from the fire, he suffered intense burns over his body and left hand. The doctors wanted to amputate his legs, and they said he'd never play the guitar again. Django refused the surgery. After a year, he walked out of the hospital with the aid of a cane. He re-learned how to play guitar, despite the fact that his 3rd and 4th fingers were still paralyzed. He survived World War II in France because of certain high-level Nazis who actually liked jazz, although Hitler and the Nazis officially hated the genre.
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk was a very unorthodox musician. Not only is his name different, but he also had a unique musical sound. His piano arrangements produced dissonant harmonies and awkward chords waiting to be resolved. "According to the English Wikipedia: Visually, he was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats and sunglasses. He was also noted for the fact that at times, while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano."
There is a jazz bar in Akita called "Monk" in honor of this artist.
There is a jazz bar in Akita called "Monk" in honor of this artist.
Chet Baker
Chet Baker played trumpet and sang with some of the greats--Stan Getz and Charlie Parker, to name a couple. His good looks and singing voice won him a lot of fans. He became an icon of the West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington state) cool jazz genre.
However, he suffered from a heroin addiction, which nearly lost him his career.
However, he suffered from a heroin addiction, which nearly lost him his career.
Edward "Duke" Ellington
Duke Ellington is perhaps the most prolific jazz musician of all time. He composed over 1000 songs in his 50+ year career! He also wrote music for blues, gospel, classical music, and film scores. He is one of the musicians who elevated jazz from a music genre that was looked down upon to something acknowledged to be of artistic merit.
In his youth, his parents surrounded him with dignified women in order to cultivate a gentleman's nature in him. He became so polite and had so much class that he earned the nickname "Duke."
As he started to gain skill in piano, he moved to Harlem and became a figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He soon joined up with the legendary King Oliver.
With his talent getting noticed, Duke got better and better jobs coming in. Eventually, he was able to gather his own orchestra of select musicians to make music together. This band would last from 1923 until the death of Ellington's son in 1996 (Duke died in 1974).
In his youth, his parents surrounded him with dignified women in order to cultivate a gentleman's nature in him. He became so polite and had so much class that he earned the nickname "Duke."
As he started to gain skill in piano, he moved to Harlem and became a figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He soon joined up with the legendary King Oliver.
With his talent getting noticed, Duke got better and better jobs coming in. Eventually, he was able to gather his own orchestra of select musicians to make music together. This band would last from 1923 until the death of Ellington's son in 1996 (Duke died in 1974).